Cain & Abel

Important note: Some antivirus and antispyware programs flag Cain & Abel as being infected/malware, although the application is perfectly safe and does not pose a threat to your system. This is called a 'false positive'. The term false positive is used when antivirus software wrongly classifies an innocuous (inoffensive) file as a virus. The incorrect detection may be due to heuristics or to an incorrect virus signature in a database. [Similar problems can occur with antitrojan or antispyware software.]
Cain & Abel is a nifty program that deals with recovering lost passwords using the most powerful and tough decryption algorithms. It is capable to quickly and efficiently retrieve Outlook and network passwords and to display passwords underneath asterisks.

Recovery and prevention components

Note that the application relies on WinPcap to be able to scan and reveal info, so you need to make sure it's installed, but the general setup package offers to grab it for you to save some time and effort.
Most encrypted passwords are breakable using this program via Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks. Decrypting scrambled passwords or wireless network keys is not a challenge either. Besides the ability to record VoIP conversations, the application also features the possibility to analyze route protocols.
Cain & Abel is made of two major components: the first one, Cain, is the frontend application that recovers passwords and the password sniffing part; the second one, Abel, is a Windows NT service that requires to be installed (locally or remotely) and has the role of scrambling the traffic inside the network, for additional protection.

Scan local and network services

The program doesn’t seek to impress through looks, which is why the user interface may seem a little unpolished. At a closer look, it sports an organized and easy to explore panel, while the additional menus encompass a wide range of tools. These include a Route Table utility, a Base64 and Cisco Password Decoder, a hash calculator, a RSA SecurID Token Calculator, to name a few.
Cain & Abel’s interface is divided into several sections, the first of which deals with decoding passwords (for Internet Explorer, Windows Mail, Dialup Passwords, as well as others). Other panels include a Sniffer (detects and retains passwords), a Trace Route Utility and a Wireless Scanner (identifies wireless networks and provides details on MAC addresses).

In conclusion

Bottom line is that you can’t go wrong with Cain & Abel’s decoding algorithms. It’s witty enough to recover the strongest passwords stored on your computer and features a bunch of other hash and decryption utilities that recommend it.